


The End of the Line

by jaehyunnova



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Love, Original Character(s), Romance, Unrequited Love, jaehyunxoc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-07 01:46:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17356640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaehyunnova/pseuds/jaehyunnova
Summary: They say to love is to fight; while others say to love is to let go.But no matter how people have been at each other’s throats in justifying their claims on what is right between the two, the answer always lies on what people believe in—on what their hearts truly believe in.And just who are we to question each other when in all actuality love comes in different forms?





	1. Foreword

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is jaehyunnova from AFF.  
> This 2019, I've planned to share my stories on AFF to other platforms to reach more people and meet new friends.  
> I hope the stories I have yet to share will bring you some entertainment. =)
> 
> The End of the Line is currently an ongoing story on AFF. <3  
> You can hit me up: https://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/1739112

Eun Ae has always been a ball of sunshine, full of positivity, full of life, and full of hope to the people around her. She has always been deemed as the little sister who keeps everyone giddy, happy, and soft whenever she was around.

However, unbeknownst to everyone, what lies beneath her ecstatic nature was a fragile, wounded, and wistful soul—a girl whose body was full of holes and burns inflicted by the tragedy of life.

She was a girl who ran away from her hurting past and bumped into her savior in the form of a white-paled-skin man with deep dimples and enchanting voice.

He was like the light at the end of the tunnel she was trying to escape from and since then she committed herself in chasing the radiant light person who managed to turn her world a whole lot brighter—Jung Jaehyun.

For three years, she has been working for his group as a staff—and in those three years she was tirelessly running after his attention, affection, and love.

What happens when that day comes when she decides to give up? 

 

_“You do not just break someone else’s heart by not loving them back. You break your own.”_

_“Maybe, maybe, all along I thought you were worth waiting for.”_

_“I love you and you love me, but why is everything so complicated?”_

_“I love you, and this is my way of showing you how much you meant to me.”_


	2. Chapter 1| The End of the Line

**Cold beers, cold hands, stone hearts.**

“They really look good together,” Eun Ae mumbled to herself as she watched the people sitting across her table with sullen eyes.

She and NCT, together with the other staff were in a bar having a pre-celebration for the group’s upcoming comeback. It was supposed to be a party, yet here she was sulking in the middle of a noisy room filled with joyous people, who were doing everything to their hearts’ content.

She could not help to stifle the sigh that escaped her lips as her eyes passed by the two figures, which brought her immense desolation.

Before her eyes were Jaehyun and Yeri, who were enjoying the pretty expensive alcoholic beverages in their hands as they engrossed themselves into whom god knows conversation they have been having.

Beside them were Jaehyun’s members who looked very much ecstatic with the two’s newly found blossoming relationship, proved by the occasional hoots and snickers they threw at the couple, which was opposed to everything she was feeling.

“I guess, this is the end of the line for me,” Eun Ae grunted under her breath as she took a can of beer in her hand and chugged it down like a bottle of refreshing mineral water.

She knew it was time to stop—she has to.

Her feelings towards the man whom she has been admiring for the past three years was getting out of hand, and she was sure, it was killing every bit of love left in her.

It was like she woke up one day realizing all her fantasies for the last three years had turn into another set of nightmares she was trying to run away from, but dissimilar to what she has been having every night, these fantasies were haunting her with her eyes wide open and in broad daylight.

She knew that this admiration she has for Jaehyun was so much more than what fans would normally have for their idols, and it was undeniably upsetting, tiresome, and truly toxic.

Eun Ae raised an arm on the table and let her elbow rest on it as she placed her chin at the back of her hand, heaving a sigh.

She knew that no matter what happens nor whatever she would try to do, Jaehyun would not look at her the same way she did, and that meant not being loved back as how she wished him to do so. She felt a piece of glass shard sharply puncturing her heart with the thought of it alone.

Was she that hateful for him to treat her like this?

Maybe. Jaehyun was one of the most gentle man she has ever met in her whole lifetime, yet for him to act like a jerk, an ass, and a monster to her meant something—and that might meant she was truly a loathsome person after all, who deserved nothing else but hate and hurt. 

Perhaps, was there any instance wherein she went overboard and stepped into the thin line between simple admiration and selfish desire?

Of course. There were numerous of times she had committed this and there was no way she would ever deny it—she would never dare to lie to herself when everyone else around her has been keeping her in the dark—when she only has herself to trust.

“Ah, what the hell did you do Eun Ae?”

She nonchalantly muttered, sipping her revolting distasteful beer, letting her head get drowned with her train of thoughts, continuously asking herself what she did wrong and how much she deserved every teensy bit of disgust and spitefulness from Jaehyun.

A striking pang of pain seeped into her bones remembering the hostility she experienced from him, and as time passed by it seemed to get worse and worse. While thoughtlessly emptying every can of beer on her table, Eun Ae reminisced how many times Jaehyun pushed her away ruthlessly.

Whenever she would sit beside him in the dorm, he would shoot her down with slithering glares and would eventually leave her by the couch as she gently smiled at him before watching him slam his door shut.

In the SM building, he would always ignore her and treat her like a passing wind every time she tried to talk to him.

At times when they would grab lunch by the cafeteria within the building, he would always make sure that there would be no available seats in the table he was occupying for her to sit on, giving her no choice but to eat lunch with others, who were most often some staffs she eventually grew pretty close with.

During every car ride, Jaehyun would insist to the head manager to transfer her to another car where most of their belongings were dumped with no one else to look after for. But against to Jaehyun’s wish, the head manager never once paid heed to his requests, which ultimately led him to despise her even more.

There were gazillions more of instances like these but what hurt her the most was when he took her as a liar—no, much more than that: a lying pathetic bitch who did nothing but torment the love of his life—Yeri.

Ever since the episode with Yeri, Jaehyun became more distant than ever, and it was like that circumstance pushed him to his limits to loathe her to the bones. Eun Ae felt like she finally unknowingly and regrettably pushed all his wrong buttons and eventually made him explode.

And for her, that was her long awaited turning point—the moment of truth. She heedlessly crushed the can in her hand and squeezed her eyes shut as she recalled herself drenched in the rain, in the middle of the night, by the Namsan Tower, basking her eyes with an incredible overlooking view. As everyone around her cuddled, bought colorful superstitious hopeful padlocks, and took pictures of precious memories with the people they were with, there she was—alone and contemplating all that had happened in the past three years of her stay in Korea.

“Is it time to let go now, Eun Ae?” she vividly remembered, chanting to herself as she stood at the top of the tower, hair whirling as the wind incessantly passed her by, eyes sweating with tears, and heart shattering into a million pieces. It was the day she had her heart out of her head, and let her brain think and make decisions for her. And that was the day she made her decision of letting go of her feelings for Jaehyun.

Eun Ae could not suppress the bitter smile that spread on her lips as she recalled the sleepless nights, indifferent attitude, and the dull Eun Ae back in those days when she contemplated on what to do before concluding with the decision of forgetting the admiration she has for Jaehyun. The question incessantly pounded her head that her headache never left her for a few ugly days.

After that torturous period of finding the answer, as she thought over it during her meals, work, and hours before sleeping, she eventually had the answer she was looking for when Jaehyun outright yelled at her to fuck off in front of everyone in the staff room as he escorted Yeri out. Truth be told, it was something terribly wounding but she was very thankful for it. Because it was the sign she had been waiting for to break free from the fantasies taking over her realities.

It has been already a few weeks since Eun Ae distanced herself from Jaehyun, and she could tell that she was doing incredibly great at this hide-and-seek game, since she has not felt any attack from him for as long as she could remember. Just then, she found herself smiling as she realized that she did the right thing, and she was more than proud of herself for pulling through, knowing that the decision she came up to was not an easy one to make when she invested three years of her life chasing the man who turned her world a whole lot brighter during the days when she was stuck in a dark tunnel, squirming in fear and pain.

Everything was seemingly going well until this day came.

Eun Ae did not know if it was because of the effect of the alcohol running through her veins, clouding her mind, and unraveling all her past hurts buried down in that ticker of hers, but today, she found herself getting hurt looking at Jaehyun and Yeri being happy.

Twisted. This feeling of hers was twisted and she knew it. But this was normal; there was no shortcut in forgetting someone as if they never existed—there was no possible way she could just deep-sixed all those feelings as if they were never significant—she could not just move on in a snap of a finger. And she knew all this, but at the same time she also knew what to do—and that was to let these feelings pass.

Because unlike the Eun Ae before, there was no turning back for the Eun Ae today. There was no way she would walk down the road, back to meet and be the Eun Ae who wore her heart on her sleeves, and let any passer-by in her life rob the teensy bit of love left within her.

That was not going to happen—not anymore—never again.

“Let’s start over. I’m going to start over again and live my life like how I used to,” Eun Ae susurrated to herself breathlessly, yet not missing to stretch a smile on her lips as if trying to cheer herself up. Lifting another can of beer to chug, she reminisced how her life was four years ago, and right there and then she felt the burning sensation of the bitter liquid trickling down her throat as she saw an image of Jeong Hui flashing before her eyes.

Just his name alone made her unbelievably desolate, guilty, and vexed all at the same time. Eun Ae could not believe that she has been constantly hurting the man who has been always by her side supporting her every endeavors; the man who has been there for her through thick and thin; the man who has been handling her with great care as he treasured her like a glass—too vulnerable and too easy to break; the man who has been her knight even though she was not and would never be worthy to be a princess; the man whom she spent almost her whole lifetime with—her bestfriend, Jeong Hui.

She felt her eyes sting and her throat burn with the uneasiness seeping in her heart as guilt clouded every other sensations tingling her body a while ago. How could she do that to the person who always had her back all this years? Just how selfish could she get?

Ungrateful. The feeling of ungratefulness stroked her, and as much as she wanted to push it away, she could not do it—not when the alcohol has intoxicated everything she got right at that moment, forcing her to relieve all the curbed emotions hidden underneath her façade.

As her train of thoughts took over her emotions and whirled her mind, Eun Ae continued on drinking, thinking she could push them all away or better yet numb her heart from every teensy bit of the myriad of emotions torturing her, and slowly killing her.

Feeling satisfied after emptying five more cans of the intoxicating drink, she looked at the line of beers she was not friends with.

Eun Ae never drinks; as a matter of fact she could not drink. The first and last time she downed something like this was four years ago, when all she ever wanted was to break free and forget everything that had happened that day.

Frankly, never did she enjoy sipping the bitter taste it gave away, but she was sure it effectively made her numb from anything that was hurting her, and that alone was enough for her to endure its unpleasant taste. However, after that incident, she never dared to lift a finger on any alcoholic beverage because she never needed to. But today was different, and she knew she needed a companion to pull through the emotional torture she was going through.

Letting out a snort as she looked at her evil, cunning, and obnoxious companions for today, she asked herself why do people claim they love drinking when all they truthfully do was basically forcing themselves in downing the sly liquid with a sharp, pungent taste.

Why would even someone go through such troubles of guzzling a can of beer when all it has to it was its bitter flavor?

Just before the darkness fully engulfed her, she had the answer to her question. But Eun Ae had a different answer, and it was opposed to the floating popular opinion about people drowning themselves in beer to forget.

Because for her, people drink not to forget, they actually drink to purposely relive the suppressed memories they have already buried and never supposed to remember. Because as they allow themselves to bask in the unforgotten pain and let it seep into their bones and creep into their hearts, they slowly lose themselves into oblivion and then after, would find themselves living in an illusion where they get to let their hearts breathe, feel brand new, and feel whole more than ever as if they were never broken before—and that feeling of being okay—even just for a single night was enough.

And all the troubles and pains they had to go through as they let the alcoholic beverage burn their throats, twist their stomachs, and drill their heads, all the while enduring its pungent taste; people would surely say that guzzling a can of beer was worth it—that they love it.

Because in the end, even just for a teensy moment, people found themselves happy, whole, and worth loving—and that alone was more than enough.


End file.
